Posted
by
ScuttleMonkeyon Tuesday November 28, 2006 @07:29AM
from the propaganda-machine dept.

Alien54 writes to tell us that the latest game in the US Army's recruiting toolbox is an impressive game, simulating both weaponry already in use and some still on the drawing board. The game portrays the nation's military in 2015 but, as some critics have said, may lack even the most basic elements of realism. From the article: "For example, there's no consideration that military power or technology could fail or be jammed, she says. And the enemy doesn't learn, in contrast to a certain real-life conflict where the hallmark of insurgents is their ability to rapidly gain knowledge and evolve."

I don't recall that either. What I do remember is that the US declared war on the British Empire in 1812 after the British took US citizens on merchant ships and forced the to fight in the British Navy, refused to recognize that the US could trade with France, and refused to stop supporting Native American attacks in the US frontier. Even though, yes, the British invasion into the US burned much of DC, the US invasion of Canada burned York (now Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, including it's parliment building. As far as New Orleans is concerned, Canada can't possibly take credit for the attack (and wouldn't want to). It was a naval invasion that utterly failed, with a US force half the size of the British taking a handful of casualties, yet killing/wounding/capturing over 2000 British troops (the irony of this is that it was after the peace treaty was signed). The war itself ended with neither side really winning anything (though both claim victory).

Actually that's not quite true either. At the time, the British considered the US citizens members of the British empire so they were recruiting them for the war against France - that explains the taking of citizens off of merchant ships (I dont agree that was right, but the British did not recognize the soverignty of the US at the time). Britain didn't want the US trading with France because of the ongoing war with France and Napoleon - the Hitler of the day.

Verses the combined military might of Russia, China, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy to name a few. Bring your head out of the clouds! In a conventional military engagement with the rest of the world the US would literally be slaughtered.

The rest of the world have more soldiers, more planes, more ships and more than 10 times the US production capability and land access via the rest of the continent.

If you really believe what you just posted then you are a blind moron.

Verses the combined military might of Russia, China, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy to name a few. Bring your head out of the clouds! In a conventional military engagement with the rest of the world the US would literally be slaughtered.

The rest of the world have more soldiers, more planes, more ships and more than 10 times the US production capability and land access via the rest of the continent.

If you really believe what you just posted then you are a blind moron.

First of all I agree with you that in USA vs rest of world the USA would _probably_ lose, but it's not as clear cut as you propose... nor would that actually be the scenario. We do need to worry about the US military, and yes, from a global standpoint.

The USA spends 466 Billion of the entire world's 900 billion [globalsecurity.org] dollar expenditures on military. China alone has more soldiers than USA has regular people, but that doesn't necessarily count for much in modern warfare.

Simply put in a conventional (modern) military engagement between USA and the rest of the world, there would be no winners. Our entire planet would be totally messed up, billions would be dead.

But even that isn't the likely scenario... some countries would undoubtedly side with the US, and the game of diplomacy would begin (which is what happens in nearly every war). Try to think of the world as a big ol' Risk board game right now. Then put yourself in the shoes of a born again Christian who is driven by faith (and thus has a moral excuse for his actions), and has significantly more little army figurines than most other countries combined.

In such a scenario, there's no clear cut winner -- like I said before, everyone will lose.

If you really believe what you just posted, then you are the one who's blinding yourself.

If Saudi Arabia declares war... and actually does something about it, they'd last about 30 minutes. The U.S. would have no moral qualms about turning the middle east into glass. The oil is safe underground, and we already hate the buggers.The only militaries that could give us a tussle in an all-out fight are Russia and China, and since we're all trading partners that won't happen. England won't declare war on a U.S. ally. Italy? Please. Spain. HAHAHAHHHAHAHAHA. The rest of Europe would be content

Use your head.Declare war on a member state of the EU and the rest of it will come running to their defence. Remember that the EU is a strong bind between the member states, much stronger than the bond between even the UK and the US (people here generally dislike the fact we're so close to the US politically). That's Europe, you know, which has population as large as the US and an awfully more experienced military record (i'm being quite serious). Besides, Italy and Spain's military power aren't to be under

If only this were true. Russia has a nuclear arsenal of roughly equivalent size to ours, and neither of us are in a big hurry to completely be rid of all of them. Second, AEGIS cruisers may be capable of shooting down a missile in flight, but so is a complete idiot with a bb gun (it's called the "golden bb theory"), and I'd posit they'd both have about an equal chance of succeeding. AEGIS is for doing simultaneous radar tracking of multiple land, air, and sea targets. That's as far as the cruisers go. What may be confusing to some people is that there is ALSO an Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System in the works based on the same AN/SPY-1 radar that the AEGIS Cruisers use to do target tracking.

It's also worth noting that all the attempts to actually shoot down missiles in flight so far have failed miserably, or succeeded accidentally. Of course, they'd say that even if they were glaring successes, but... If the US actually had a capable Theatre Missile Defense System you'd see all kinds of fallout on the international stage, along with a new arms race. If you remember, this was a very big topic in the news before 9/11 (along with North Korea's nuclear ambitions and rocket tests, and China 'accidentally' downing one of our planes in international waters) that suddenly just disappeared after the planes hit.

While I consider myself a bit of a nationalist, and a definite "military enthusiast," I'm not at all willing to say that we can shoot down a long range missile with anything approaching reliability or regularity, much less a multi-stage ballistic missile with MIRV bomblets. If the nukes ever fly we're just as dead as everyone else who doesn't have a doomsday shelter. If nuclear war ever looks eminent I'll probably be taking a trip to the Greenbrier to "play golf" and "take in the sights.";)

When I was in "the Nav" (1984-1988) I loathed some of the ridiculous scenarious I read in some pubs, and some of the exercises we participated in.I suggested this: the Soviets don't NEED to sink a carrier. Just do one or two or both of these:

A. send a low-yield/radiation, high-blast effect nuke or exotic violently explosive bomb over the CVNs. Warp the flight deck and jame the steam catapults. Now, no jet planes (other than Skyhawks, Harriers and smaller training planes) would launch. If you get lucky and j

That's assuming no one launches the first batch thinking they are going to get 70 virgins out of the deal, or that Jesus is coming back and all the 'good' folks are going straight to heaven, so it doesn't matter if the rest of us get cooked...

Economics. Exactly. The US government is actually worried that the world will begin trading gold based in Euros rather than the US dollar. If that were to happen, it is very likely that the US dollar will devalue against all other currencies. Followed closely would be the trading of oil in Euros. Global demand for the US dollar will drop, and the US economy's ability to purchase foreign goods will decrease.

The economic impact from something so simple as changing the default currency for trading commodities is so detrimental to US economics that you can pretty much bet your life that the US government is doing all it can to protect their dollar.

If it were a world vs US war, the world would win by simply cutting off all ties with the US. Simply put, the US's worst enemy is itself.

In a head to head fight that is absolutely true. USA vs The Rest Of the World would still see the US winning by a factor of 10 to one.

No, in a head to head fight the nuclear weapons would come out and everyone would lose. Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) means just that. Any country with nuclear armed submarines can be farily sure they will wipe out whoever takes a crack at them.

Does that include the 550 million Chinese people who are available for military service as well? Although I don't know the size of the total armed forces (including reserves and National Guard) of the USA, the total US population is only about 300 million people whereas the population of China is almost twice that. Their standing army is about 3.5 million strong.
Source: CIA Factbook [cia.gov]

I'm not too worried about 550 million Chinese fighters as long as we have a few soldiers with superior training and proper motivation. I saw a John Woo movie and from what I can tell one decent guy with a good motivation can take out hundreds of Chinese fighters pretty quickly. Especially if you get them in close combat in a house or a warehoue.

Europe is a serious economic power and a major global market competitior. Militarily - not so much. The US has heavily overinvested in defense for the benefit of the political contributors in the defense industry.

Now if you're including Russia in Europe that's a whole different thing. Both Russia and the U.S. have about 8000 warheads apiece considered battle ready. Britain has about 200 and France about 350.

Plus, the U.S. doesn't have the language and governmental coordination problem that Europe has.

The other irony being that Saddam was helped into power by the CIA when the country was overrun with lefties and we wanted oil from them. (The same lefties had previously nationalised all the oil industry and forced US companies out when they came to power in a bloodless coup in the 70s)He only became an enemy of the US when he invaded another country with oil to give himself more market share so he could force the price up. If he had stuck with gassing the Kurds the US would have ingored this and carried o

A simulation will always be a simulation. It seldom comes close to the original. You need just to choose how close you can/want come.
In games, this difference between reality and simulation is often dictated by the fun factor. I mean how fun it will be drving a car simulator and if you crash you will need to repair the car yourself after staying 3 weeks in hospital. Not fun at all, so you simulate a crash and... start again with a new one.

A simulation isn't much good if it doesn't provide at least a rough approximation to some aspect that it is trying to simulate. I am not familiar with with this particular game, but I've played AA a several times and one thing you can discover all too easily is how to be shot in the head by the opposing team if you go blazing in.

I mean how fun it will be drving a car simulator and if you crash you will need to repair the car yourself after staying 3 weeks in hospital.

That'd actually be pretty cool. Crash your car and have to call the police, then phone up your Geiko representative to come down and check your car out to see if he'll total it. Then when the ambulance shows up they cart you off to the hospital where the car simulation turns into a medical simulation for 3 *real* weeks. When they discharge you it then turns into an insurance simulation where you have to fight with your insurance company to get your car fixed or written off. Then car buying simulation kicks into effect!

That'd actually be pretty cool. Crash your car and have to call the police, then phone up your Geiko representative to come down and check your car out to see if he'll total it. Then when the ambulance shows up they cart you off to the hospital where the car simulation turns into a medical simulation for 3 *real* weeks. When they discharge you it then turns into an insurance simulation where you have to fight with your insurance company to get your car fixed or written off. Then car buying simulation kicks

That'd actually be pretty cool. Crash your car and have to call the police, then phone up your Geiko representative to come down and check your car out to see if he'll total it. Then when the ambulance shows up they cart you off to the hospital where the car simulation turns into a medical simulation for 3 *real* weeks. When they discharge you it then turns into an insurance simulation where you have to fight with your insurance company to get your car fixed or written off. Then car buying simulation kicks into effect!

You forgot the part where you do something tedious for hours on end in order to get the money needed to buy what you want.

Oh wait, they have those games already. They are called MMORPGs. *ducks*

A game is something you can play it to have some fun.
A simulation is an attempt to simulate the real world by including real physics and real world constraints.
A simulation might be a game if you can play it. But a game isn t always a simulation.

For example Need for Speed is a racing game which isn t a simulation. You can drive at insane speed and even if you crash into a wall your car wont notice it (not real world physics). Moreover even if you re the most dangerous guy on the road, its easy to get rid of the police (not real world constraints).
On the other hand, TOCA Touring car is a racing game which is also a simulation. If you go too fast you go out of the track at the first turn. And if you run into your opponents, you will receive some damages (real world physics), and might get disqualified (real world constraints.

Arguably, making failure possible is more important in a game than in a simulation. What makes the game fun is that you don't suffer any consequences from failure, so you can try again and beat it.Writing a perfect simulation is like writing a piece of software which can prove any theorem. It's not possible in any practical sense.

The key in the simulation are the assumptions it embodies. We currently spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. Presumably this is to cover just about

This article is really just political FUD. Games are notorious for having poor adaptation in their AI, and very few FPSes have weapons that can jam or break. Complaining about these flaws which are really just industry-standard "features" is really just an excuse to accuse the US Army of shortsightedness under the guise of reviewing a game.

I haven't read the article yet but if this is meant for recruiting as the blurb says, a game that puts forward how easily recruits will be killed or maimed by low tech means after they join probably wouldn't fit the bill.

This isn't about being realistic, this is about convincing people to join. In other words it's advertising aka marketing (aka lying).

It could probably also be used to get more funding from the government too.

The thing is, America's Army had weapons that jammed and it was all too easy to be killed too. Which is why AA is still considered to be a very good FPS and up there with the likes of CS.

And if the AI is poor, don't use AI - let the opposing forces be played by real humans. Imagine a middle east simulator where you could choose to be an insurgent (poorly armed, but can ambush, has local knowledge, can blend in with civilians), or a US soldier (heavily armed, but obvious and vulnerable to ambush). Both sid

This is actually an important part of training. The Army regularly puts their troops up against some of the best live opponents that can find. It's called "Opfor." My spend 2 years in the Mojave desert, knocking off one battalian after another as the bad guys.

In full scale war games, they actually bolt electronics onto the Serviceman's actual rifle that essentially plays laser-tag with blanks. You have to have a clip to make the gun fire, and the guns do actually Jam, and they have simulated land mines, IED's, morter attacks, air strikes, etc. It's all in a real environtment, so you have heat and cold, dirt, body odor, everything.

Some reserve units are actually pretty experienced and can beat Opfor. They are the minority. Most newer units get schooled, and they have the experience of having died in battle to teach them what not to do.

So, you're saying that it's "political" and it's about "fear, uncertainty, and doubt". Well, it is, and it should be. The military is not a game, it's about loss, fear, boredom, injury, limited career and advancement options, destruction, bureaucracy, disease, grief, killing, and being killed. If you don't have "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" about that, there is something wrong with you as a human being. And when the military recruits impressionable young people with games that give them a completely un

In their previous propaganda game, America's Army (which we play a lot at the office because it's free, not because we actually like the US army), weapons could jam. And hitting the enemy is far from trivial; a well aimed shot with a good scope is often worth a lot more than a machine gun. But when you're hit and the bullet doesn't kill you outright (which it might), you move slower, and you can still bleed to death. Pretty convincing game IMO.
On the other hand, the game also clearly demonstrates the US view that your own side is always the good guys, and the opponents are always the bad guys: both sides see their team mates as US soldiers, and the other side as terrorists. It confuses a lot of new players who want to know if they're the Americans or the terrorists, and who else is on their side.

The game is meant to be a recruitment tool. It shows you all the cool stuff you'll get to maintain as you kick down the door to the wrong person's house and thus create a brand new recruit for the enemy. It's going for the Wow, Neato effect rather than realistic gameplay.

If they built the game so that you could lose, that would make the game interesting and eclipse the whole point of the game.

It's like when they have airshows with the Blue Angels or open house day where civilians can stand on the deck of a carrier. It's not meant to give you a realistic idea of what goes on. They aren't going to show you guys swabbing the deck or the guys emptying the latrine. They show you the good stuff and when you're sold, they hit you with reality.

It might be a recruiting tool but setting unrealistic expectations is just daft. Army recruiting in the UK is all about doing exciting stuff and seeing the world, not about being shot at and enduring weeks of boardom punctuated by fighting for your life.

People then wonder why moral is low and troops and their parents are complaining about the support and conditions. If I tried to sell you something by misrepresenting it, I would be liable to prosecution, and you would get you money back.

I can see how technology can fail (as in "the gun doesn't shoot when I pull the trigger") and be jammed (as in "the gun doesn't shoot when I pull the trigger because someon did something to it"), but what does it mean for power to fail? Sounds fuzzy. And we don't like fuzzy, do we?;-)

Whichever side you're on, you're gonna be with the US Army. The opposing side will look like insurgents of some sort, even though they're in the US Army from their perspective.
I always found it funny that the standard-issue M16s jammed semi-frequently, while the AK-47s that you can pick up from enemies never jammed (also offers the popular automatic-fire mode, as opposed to burst fire with the M16s).
Also, they added AI in their most recent patch, and it's just horrible. The dudes are idiots, but some of them have impossible aim, so are impossible to kill. I don't know if the same company made the new game, but if they did, that would explain the terrible AI.

"I always found it funny that the standard-issue M16s jammed semi-frequently, while the AK-47s that you can pick up from enemies never jammed"

Well, have you ever used an M16, notorious for it's tendency to jam, or an AK-47, famous for it's reliability? While the 5.56mm ammo of the M16 offers several advantages over the 7.62mm ammo of the AK-47, when it comes to reliability, the AK-47 wins hands down.

I've shot a 1965, romanian built AK-47 modified - the one with plastic on it - some 5 years ago. The gun was 35 years old, fired low and right, but had good groupings at 100m. Seems it wasn't fired muchInteresting, because the "low and right" could be compensated with adjustable sights. Good groupings are a much more meaningful indicator of quality. So the Ak-47 seems not to be so bad after all.According to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ak-47 [wikipedia.org], the chamber and barrel are chromium lined which should

As shown by the shock and awe campaign in Iraq, the US armY has a clear advantage in conventional combat. I bet the US can win a war against any naval, air and and armored enemy army. The problem is that the enemy has evolved. Any one with half a brain will not go in a frontal war against the US, but there is an achilles heel, morale

Any nation wishing to carry out a succesful defense against a US invasion has to fight a guerrilla war. Forget about the tanks, forget about the planes, forget about the uniforms. Send your soldiers home with a very lose chain of command and a clear mission. Wage a war of oportunity. Attack only from crowded places, dress as a civilian. Attack the countrymen that colaborate with the US. The goal of your attacks is to make them as shocking and news worthy as possible. The can't do anythinga bout that. They cannot fight against the people without giant political fallout. Wait long enough and you will drive them out.

I think the US Army doctrine is obsolete. These are new times in warfare, where aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines mean nothing.

Your absolutely right but those tactics are nothing new. When the French were invaded by Hitler I think they had the resistance in place beforehand to cause as much damage to the occupying forces as they could.

Churchill had already put in place extensive plans to deal with a successful German invasion including chains of command, weapons dumps etc and had people trained specifically to kill Germans whenever the chance was offered and also anyone co-operating with them.

Even longer ago in Afghanistan when the British were there the opposing tribes simply played them along by on the one hand pretending to negotiate with them and getting what they could from them and on the other doing whatever they could to isolate the British forces disrupt their supply lines. They managed to get the British to agree not to fortify their encampments and later once the position was becoming increasingly untenable they offered safe passage back into India at which point they triggered what is, I think, still the worst Military defeat the British Army has ever received. I think there was only one survivor out of a force of 7,000 or so.

So, these tactics have a long pedigree and with a bit of luck often work which makes it all the more surprising when people tell you that the fact its happening now is such a shock and they hadn't expected anything like this to happen.

Don't forget American revolutionaries hiding behind trees and picking off British soldiers in bright red uniforms. You'd think the US would remember stuff like this, but history doesn't seem to be our best subject these days.

Yes, that's a good example. The UK was then a superpower and fielding one of the most powerful and advanced armies of the day. In a straight one on one shock and awe type engagement the US wouldn't have stood a chance but that option wasn't on the table for various reasons and the "terrorists" were able to take advantage of both the UK's engagements elsewhere and the public feeling of most British citizens to avoid unecessary slaughter and bloodshed on their American cousins.Even if you have the most powerf

Before the Russian "invasion" of Afghanistan (believe it or not they actually were invited in by a secular government to deal with Islamic extremists...except in those days we, the good guys, supported the extremists because at least they weren't Communists), embassy staff in London went round buying up old history books on the Afghan wars. A bookseller tried to tell the Foreign Office but they didn't want to know - John Le Carre is spot on about UK and US intelligence inadequacies.

What you're proposing is nothing new at all - it has been standard practice since before WWII to do just that to invading troops. Wear them down, harass them, attack them where possible, etc. The US army needs to wake up, apparently.:)

As shown by the shock and awe campaign in Iraq, the US armY has a clear advantage in conventional combat. I bet the US can win a war against any naval, air and and armored enemy army.

Any army has a clear advantage if the enemy is ill equipped using outdated weaponry and surrenders on sight. When was the last time the US military fought a equivalently modern well equipped army? You're probably gonna have to go back 50 years at least.

Sure, going up against a clapped out country like Iraq makes the USA army look good. But what about a mightier foe? Say China?

The USA military relies so heavily on advanced technology these days, that I think it could be disadvantageous in a battle with a foe more of its equal. Imagine a battle situation where the enemy is cunning and understands your technology. You think that, for instance, the Chinese are not capable of disrupting GPS signals on a ba

Actually, the modern US Army is a surprisingly agile and adaptive force. It's not like the Cold War Army of the 80s that used mass and raw firepower as a replacement for training.We used to joke about how dumb the Yanks were - nice guys, but dumb as rocks. Things like the Dragon ATGM manual being a comic book didn't help that impression very much. Yank training was very focussed on accomplishing a specific job for a specific soldier, with little to no contingency training. Compare against Canadian doctrine,

This is an interesting one. So the US cannot lose? It makes me laugh! Let's remember that no one has ever escaped reality and the reality is that the US army, just like any other army is being "whipped" in Iraq!

Things are not going well over there at all. I used to hear my Commander In Chief say stuff like..."...stay the course...",..."...bring them on..."..."we'll get him (Bin Laden) dead or alive..."..."We'll prevail..." and the latest was "all major military operations are complete and the US has prevailed." Such rant is now gone.

Let's not forget that it was the same rant/rhetoric 30 years ago and because we could not escape reality, we had to face it and lost the war. Do not get me wrong. I support our troops. What I do not support is the bigotry and the "I know it all attitude" our leaders have.

If we had to fight them over there so that we do not fight them here...then let's put in mind the fact that we've lost close to 3,000 lives in this war. The number is about the same as those lost on 9/11.

If we had to fight them over there so that we do not fight them here...then let's put in mind the fact that we've lost close to 3,000 lives in this war. The number is about the same as those lost on 9/11.

Excellent point. Those lives would not have been lost if the US had not invaded Iraq. And, of course, the invasion did absolutely nothing to deter or prevent terrorists from striking again on US soil. It was painfully obvious from the get-go that Iraq was not harboring members of Al Qaeda. Iraq did not have any WMDs to speak of either. The administration knew this beforehand, but chose to lie about it as they saw it as the best way to get the public behind them. It's fucking shameful that they were able to manipulate the public into supporting this travesty of an invasion. And no, I won't ask you to pardon my French, and yes, I know that this has been said time and again before, but it can't be said too often.

The US administration was able to get its fucking evil way by repeating lies again and again. The victims of this insanity deserve nothing less than to hear the truth, again, again, and again...

I can't speak for America but it seems that the threat of terrorism and actual terrorism has increased markedly since the Iraq war elsewhere, the London Tube Bombings being the most obvious sign of that.

Maybe you're right and it is fighting the Iraq war which is protecting you, or maybe you're spending a lot more money and resources on more conventional anti terrorism measures now, or maybe you've just been lucky so far, or maybe terrorists can't cross water until they reach a suitable power level.

The opinion of most people is that the threat of terrorism is now much greater thanks to activities in Iraq.

"How was anyone to believe that Iraq did not have WMDs"It's funny, morons like yourself were constantly telling us about all the evil WMDs Saddam had and how that was all the justification they needed to go to war.

I'd like to know if you have perhaps only recently learned to read ? Maybe you are deaf ? If not you'd have noticed an awful lot of people telling you before the Iraq war that it was very unlikely Saddam had any WMDs at all and even if he did even less likely that he'd ever use them on the US.

The Salesmen's job is to sell the product (i.e. the politician selling the idea of an easily won war)The Engineer's job is to actually deliver the product (i.e. the army actually winning the said war)

No-one ever seems to listen to the engineers, it's always the salesman who the client communicates with; the half which has absolutely no experience of what is actually required to get the job done (or whether it is even technically possible).

To me, the parallels between the current Iraq war situation and your typical incompetently specified I.T. project are startling.

Speaking of departing reality...While I'm utterly aware of the difficulties facing the US military in Iraq (and particularly how mismanaged the post-invasiona deployment has been by the Bush administration) I'm not entirely sure you can say the US is being "whipped" in Iraq.

To conquer a nation of 22 million = 3,000 casualties (the huge majority of which have been caused in occupation operations). Germany's population in WW2 was 55 million. Think about that for a second.

Obviously you haven't played THIS game yet. I tried it yesterday, sounded cool, nice intro and then bam: it's all played on a 2D map with icons. Oh the briefing that lasts 8 minutes and contains 98% hardcore military jargon. Tons of fun.
Well, I guess hardcore war gamers will find it fun. I'd rather go back and play another run of Company of Heroes. But thanks to the American tax payer anyway, this is still tons better then the National Guard's crappy "

I'd expect the world's single superpower to win any military conflict and roll into any place they fancy, smashing the infrastructure of the country into the stone age. But that's just the easy bit. I think you guys will be judged on how you deal with the hard tasks after that.

Things like:-300 points for team-kills, except Europeans.-100 points for civilian kills, but some mild torture should give at least +10 but with the possibility of some bad press.+50 points should be given for every gun you manage sell to the insurgents instead of using against them.

The US military has always had a very warped view regarding the benefits that technology in a war can give them. They seem to believe that they won't have to think (and want to get that over to their recruits!), or even see or touch their enemy, despite several high profile disasters and beatings - Vietnam being the big one (and Iraq today). Despite all the soul searching by Americans via movies and other avenues over Vietnam, everyone overlooks the inescapable conclusion - the US got absolutely ripped to pieces (saying they got beat just wouldn't be a fair reflection) because it thought it could beat an enemy by napalming everything from 30,000 feet. So it still remains today.

Judging from this game (and the disaster that is Iraq) their view of this hasn't changed, and it's something that they obviously want new recruits to believe as well. The US has the best technology in the world and it never loses!

Oh, and another thing. Does every weapon have to have a bloody acronym? It's not an IED. It's a bomb, or a roadside bomb or a mine (they're nothing new - really). That will do. I don't see any other military in the world that has ever needed to find acronyms for things that they don't like - maybe it seems less real that way;-). I get the impression that some people like thinking up acronyms for things (hey, it looks as if you're doing something!) rather than actually concentrating on what they should be doing.

From the blurb "For example, there's no consideration that military power or technology could fail or be jammed, she says. And the enemy doesn't learn, in contrast to a certain real-life conflict where the hallmark of insurgents is their ability to rapidly gain knowledge and evolve."

Well, first it's a recruiting tool. Of course the Americans are going to come out on top. (But, in all honesty, there really isn't a peer military any where in the world.) But more importantly, these criticisms with respect to the Army are ridiculous. There isn't a game made that has meets these criteria. Everyone can pickup as much ammo as they want without ever slowing down. Everyone can carry multiple full sized guns. Guns just miraculously appear whenever you change to them. (Aparently weapons are stored in some sort of pocket dimension like Optimus Prime's trailer.) Wounds don't do anything. You can be miracuously healed in an instance. Guns don't get jammed. People don't get tired. Guns are always accurate. Everyone can drive any vehicle, from snowmobiles to tanks. Oh and the tanks? They take a crew of one, and operate at full effectiveness right up until they explode.

Sure some games have some of these things, but it's rare when they do, and they rarely have them all. Why aren't games realistic? Because they're games. They're meant to be fun, and when compared to fantasy, reality frankly sucks.

Of all the multiplayer FPSs I've found out there, America's Army is the only one I really stick to and play regularly. Despite it's flaws, (and it's hardly a perfectly designed game) it encourages strategic gameplay and teamwork. Perhaps it's because I suck at fast-twitch FPSs, but the idea of actually outthinking your opponents really appeals to me. Quite simply, the game is fun.Now I know the game is propaganda for the US Army and any ideals it holds, but I haven't joined the forces yet, nor do I ever

Remember Vietnam. An army can win almost all the battles it is engaged in and still lose a war for non-tactical reasons.American army technical superiority is great when they need to go somewhere, do the job and get away quickly or simply sterilize an area from the stratosphere, but when they have to stay somewhere, they suffer from their low headcount.

American army technical superiority is great when they need to go somewhere, do the job and get away quickly or simply sterilize an area from the stratosphere, but when they have to stay somewhere, they suffer from their low headcount.

I suppose it's not surprising that we're losing in Iraq given that the people in charge of the military seem to be idiots. Our men and women and Iraqi civilians dying over there because of idiot officers and politicians.

I remember reading about the military's cheating a while back.
Here's a little background [smh.com.au] about how the US spent $253 million dollars on Middle East war games in 2002 and fixed it so they would win.

This game, much like America's Army, is a recruiting tool. It's designed to get teens and twentysomethings interested in signing on the dotted line and raising their right hand. So naturally it's going to be "hard to lose," because actually losing might discourage someone from peeking his head into the Army recruiter's office.